Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Old Hidalgo Pumphouse


On Monday we visited another one of the World Birding Center parks, the Old Hidalgo Pump House.  This pump house along with others, was important in the irrigation of the Rio Grande Valley to help change the land from being used only as cattle grazing to the food producing area that it is now.


We didn't get to go through most of the park because it is blocked off by the "border fence". It was close enough to the border that the border patrol was there and when asked they said, "we can't stop you from going through, but we advise you not to go south of the fence." Needless to say, we didn't go south of the fence!


We did walk down the road on the north side of the fence and although we didn't see many birds we did find this cast off blanket. Gene's theory is that someone from the south of the border used it for warmth during the night and as morning came they got hot and discarded it. Whether that is true or not it did seem strange to find a blanket laying on the ground just north of the border.


We didn't see any birds to talk about but we did see this National Guard soldier doing border patrol. He is a member of the Army-Texas National Guard in the 38th Infantry Division.

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